The Mirage of Melamchi

‘Kathmandu will See Waters in 42 Months

If everything goes well, then Kathmanduites will get to drink the water from the Melamchi river within the next three and a half years, claim the authorities.

By Saket Adhikari

Construction works under the longawaited Melamchi Water Supply Project (MWSP) have paced up in recent times, rekindling hopes that the waters from the Melamchi river will be available in the capital within the next three and a half years. 42 months. “Our target is to complete the project within by mid- 2015,” said Krishna Prasad Acharya, Executive Director of Melamchi Water Supply Development Board, “The water from Melamchi will reach the purification plant at Sundarijal within the next three and a half years.” The project includes constructing a 27.5 km diversion tunnel to bring the water from Melamchi to Kathmandu. The contract for the construction of the tunnel was given to a joint venture of China Railways 15 Bureau Group Corporation and china CMIIC

Engineering Corporation for a price of USD 66.5 million on 19 February 2009. This year's budget has allocated Rs 2.46 billion for the construction of the tunnel. The initial estimated budget for the Project is Rs 17.43 billion. The Melamchi Board has already spent Rs 8.8 billion till date, including management expenses. The construction of the tunnel started on April 2010. Only 3.5 km of the tunnel has been constructed so far. The work for the project could start only after the Asian Development Bank (ADB) re-negotiated the loan in 2008. “ADB was not ready to re-negotiate the loan until the government agreed to privatise the water supply of the Kathmandu valley. This was the major reason behind the delay,” said Ram Prasad Kharel, Chief of the Planning and Procurement Unit of MWSP. Even after the construction work started, it couldn’t take pace owing to hurdles created by the local people and political instability in the country, Kharel explained.

“Six months have already passed but we have been able to spend only Rs 190 million,” informed Kharel,” Last year too, we could spend only Rs 830 million out of the Rs 2.11 billion earmarked for the project.” Acharya accepts that the construction work was very slow till October 2011. “Since November, the tunnel construction has picked up pace. Currently, it's going at the rate of at least 500 m per month. Now, we aim to complete 8 to 10 km of the tunnel per year,” informed Acharya. Hard rocks are proving to be a major challenge in tunnel construction and sometimes it takes a whole day to clear a single rock, according to the workers at the tunnel construction site. Tunnel construction requires a huge amount of explosives which need to be imported. “Nearly 1500 kg of explosives is consumed per day,” said Acharya, “Transporting and storing the explosives is also a challenge."

Construction of a water treatment plant at Sundarijal is the other component of the project. "The construction of both the tunnel and the water treatment plant is going side by side," Acharya shared. The treatment plant is expected to be completed in the next 30 months, he added. Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has agreed to provide a loan of Rs 650 million for the construction of the water treatment plant. A separate Project Implement Office (PIO) was formed in April 2009 for the distribution of Melamchi water in Kathmandu. MWSP has provided a budget of Rs 40 million to the PIO. “With this money, we can only lay the pipeline from the treatment plant at Sundarijal to the reservoirs at Mahankal Chour,” said Ghanashyam Bhattrai, Deputy Director at PIO. On November 20 last year, ADB and Nepal Government signed an agreement for a new loan of Rs 130 million for PIO which will receive the loan in February 2012. “With this money, we have planned to build five reservoirs, replace the old pipelines at various areas and connect the reservoirs to the water supply network,” said Bhattrai.

The PIO has started identifying the old pipelines in the Kathmandu Valley that need to be replaced.